Love Survives (Love's Suicide #2)(56)

Once she sat up and started looking around I knew that was my cue to get out of there. I wasn’t ready to be face to face with her. I still didn’t know if I’d ever be.

I panicked, unable to accept that we’d been that close and not said a single word to each other. Another thing I wondered about was why she’d passed out? Why would that be her reaction to seeing me? I’d told her I was coming home to be with her. She knew I was back in the states, yet she appeared to have seen a ghost, or someone she feared. It made me feel like shit.

Three days later, I was sitting in my office looking over documents for new recruits that would be coming in to train. For the life of me I couldn’t keep my focus on anything. I kept replaying seeing Kat at the parade, and how she’d reacted when our eyes met.

The phone rang, causing me to jump clear out of my seat. I pushed the button to answer it. “Valentine?”

“Sir, this is Matthews at the front gate. I have a woman out here claiming she needs to see you. She’s says it’s an emergency.”

I tried to keep my composure, knowing only one woman knew where to find me. “Did she give a name?”

“Yeah, she said her name is Katy Michaels.”

I rubbed my face with both hands, trying to consider my options. It wasn’t like I had the gull to send her away. More than anything we needed to hash this out. Once and for all I longed to have closure.

“Send her through.”

I’d had years to think about what I’d say if I saw her again, yet in this instant I couldn’t come up with one thing. My heart was thumping so hard that I swore it was going to explode. If that wasn’t bad enough, my throat felt as if it were closing. I took a sip of water before standing up and putting my hat on, hoping I could use it to shield myself from getting lost in those eyes that I loved so much.

It was one-hundred and seventy four steps to the parking lot. I know this because I counted them to keep my mind off what was about to happen. As the patter of her car pulled into a parking spot, I stepped out to greet her.

As impossible as it was to grasp, I could feel a tightening in my throat again, this time because I was fighting back my emotions. It was important to stay strong. She couldn’t know she’d broke me.




Right away I could tell she was refusing to look in my direction. I stood on the curb, clenching my jaw trying to come to grips with the situation. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the passenger side door and climbing in. Right away I could smell her shampoo. It took me a few seconds to look in her direction. She was peering out the window, refusing to turn my way.

“Kat, look at me.” The silence was torture.



It was hard for me to watch her turn to face me in slow motion. Her eyes said it all, even before my name escaped her lips. “Brooks.”

I couldn’t help from touching her, wiping those tears away that were falling from her eyes. “Don’t cry. I can’t handle it.”

She scrunched up her face and cried harder. “I just got your letter. The last one you sent. It must have gotten lost.”

I placed my fingers over her lips. Just for a second I wanted to avoid thinking she could be lying to me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I felt. “Like the letters you wrote to me, telling me you were married with a kid?”

Kat hid her face, placing it against her steering wheel. I’d hit a nerve, and as much as I felt the need to hurt her, I knew I didn’t have it in me.

“I’m so sorry, Brooks. I didn’t have the heart to tell you. I never expected that you’d still love me and when I found out you did, nothing else mattered except for you and me.”

I was in shock. What did all this mean?

“Kat, do you have any idea what I had to do to get stationed near you? It was a pain in the ass and involved a lot of ass kissing. I figured that it didn’t matter as long as I had you. We could get married and live on or off a base somewhere, and maybe even have a couple of kids. Do you have any idea how it felt to pull up at your house and see you with them? At first I couldn’t believe it. I thought maybe you were living with friends. Then when that cop came and told me that you and your husband were concerned, I knew my fears were true.”

“I’m sorry. You don’t understand what happened to me.”

This time I was the one looking away. I refused to let her see me upset. “How long have you been married, Kat?”

“Two years,” she replied in a whisper.

I twisted my body to face hers, unable to come to grips with the fact that she’d been with this person for two whole years. I felt like an idiot. “Jesus Christ. Did you even mean the things you said to me, or were they all just bullshit?”

“Everything I said was the truth and you know it!” She defended.

I gazed out the passenger window again. I had to keep hiding my face. She knew me too well. “I wish I could believe that.”

It shocked me when I felt her hand grazing mine. I looked in her direction immediately, catching her eyes with mine. It was important to change the subject before I did or said something I’d regret later. “I can feel your touch. It’s gotten worse. The feeling comes and goes. If it keeps up I’m going to fail my next PT-test and then I’ll be up shit’s creek.” Focusing on my injury was the best I could come up with.